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Sitcoms Analyzed

Comedy programs such as sitcoms which focus on issues and current events in our society have become seemingly popular in today’s day and age. This maybe due to the four elements found in the programs. The four elements being: plots, characters, settings and the techniques in which humour is applied. These elements ease the program into achieving two possible purposes; firstly, to entertain its viewers; and secondly, to provide moral guidance to its viewers. A prime example of a sitcom that clearly displays these four elements is the American produced sitcom: Friends. Friends, roughly summed up, is a twenty-two minute sitcom which focuses on the day-to-day lives of a group of six friends.

When observing sitcoms there are two types of plots in mind, the type of plots use in a program is dependent upon the previous and following episodes. Generally, situation comedies are long-running, as they possess the ability to be endlessly reproduced. This is due to the fact that what ever happens in each episode, all complications are resolved by the end and the characters and overall situation is not changed. Also another similarity shared between plots is that they are simple, therefore simple to understand. The simplicity is a factor that contributes to the sitcom’s ability to endlessly be reproduced. An example of what has been discussed in this paragraph can be found in the episode of Friends titled ‘The One with All the Cheesecakes’. In this episode the three complications were: Chandler (played by Matthew Perry) and Rachel’s (played by Jennifer Anniston) addiction towards cheesecake; Monica (played by Courtney Arquette) not being invited to her cousin’s wedding and Joey (played by Matt Le Blanc) and Phoebe (played by Lisa Kudrow) standing each other up for dinner with other people. Before the end of the episode these complications are all resolved in humorous or unexpected ways, such as when Rachel drops her last piece of the cheesecake after ranting...

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...﻿14 October 2013
Sitcom Internet Assignment
Sitcoms have essentially been around since the beginning of television in the 1940’s. One of the first sitcoms was “The Goldbergs,” which moved from radio to television in 1949 (Fordham Metz). This show was centered on a family living in the Bronx made up of Molly and Jake Goldberg and their two children. The Goldbergs were Jewish immigrants and dealt with the everyday family-related problems of the time. Molly was a good housewife and mother to her children. While sitcoms have been on a steady incline since the days of “The Goldbergs,” some critics say that in the past couple years the sitcom has been slowly killed off in the name of reality TV. According to Senior Writer for BuddyTV, John Kubicek, 2012-2013 is the year the sitcom died. He comments on the fact that while shows like “Modern Family” and “The Big Bang Theory” have experienced great success, many others have failed. Shows that have lasted years such as “The Office” and “30 Rock” have completed their final seasons and others are soon to follow. In the light of so many failures, networks are unlikely to order more (Kubicek).
People are no longer drawn to the scripted comedies. They are leaning more, now, towards the idea of the “real-life” comedies of reality TV. These shows give the viewer some nostalgia and a sense of believability that sitcoms do not allow....

...﻿Sitcoms and dramas both have the same purpose, and that is to entertain. The way conflict matters are portrayed between the two on the other hand is very different. Sitcoms generally portray conflict situations in a comedic manner while dramas are much more serious and/or realistic. Dramas also tend to be more character driven while sitcoms are more plot driven. It is quite common to find that romantic relationships figure prominently in the story lines of both domestic and nondomestic sitcoms and for conflict to be a source of humor in those relationships. (Galician) As Galician prescribed, “Courtesy counts” in real romantic relationships. Nevertheless, hurtful messages have been shown to be prevalent in sitcoms. (Galician) Modern sitcoms that we see today often perpetuate myths regarding mind reading (Myth #3), partner transformation (Myth #7), and the belief that conflict is key to loving romantic relationships. (Myth #8)
Although the primary purpose of sitcoms is to entertain, the messages can teach harmful lessons about how romantic couples should handle conflict. (Galician) As viewers watch sitcom couples engage in conflict, it would seem easy to dismiss the argument that sitcoms, given their frivolous nature, can influence viewers’ expectations of romantic relationships. (Galician) Humor often stems from conflict in sitcoms...

...Using examples, discuss the way in which the situation comedy can be analysed in terms of gender.
This paper will explore in detail, the concept of gender and it’s relation to the situation comedy (sitcom), analysing both masculine and feminine gender roles within this popular genre of television. To gain a basic understanding of the theory included in the representation of gender in the sitcom, this paper will mainly draw on the research of television theorist Bret Mills. The well-known sitcom ‘Friends’ is the main television show I will extract examples from to demonstrate gender roles (stereotyped or not) throughout this paper.
In order to distinguish what is meant by the term ‘gender’, it is important to initially define at a basic level what gender embodies in its meaning. So, when referring to gender, we refer to masculinity and femininity which is culturally determined. People do however confuse gender with ‘sex’ as sex is biologically determined (male/female) which can also be considered ‘fixed’ as opposed to the flexibility of gender.
Biology need not be assumed to determine gender. This is to suggest that, while what makes a person male or female is universal and grounded in laws of nature, the precise ways in which women express their femininity and men express their masculinity will vary from culture to culture.
Edgar, A. Sedgwick, P. (2000:158)
Now that we’ve distinguished what is meant by ‘gender’,...

...Sitcoms are often overlooked, seen as silly sketches that go for too long. This essay will attempt do disprove that and put forward that sitcoms are a complex genre. Sitcoms are highly formulised and well constructed. They need to satirise issues and make us laugh without being at all serious, which is quite a challenge. I will discuss the four major elements of a sitcom: setting, plot, how the humour is created and most importantly the characters. Sitcoms are character driven, the plots come from the character’s lives and the settings and humour come from the lives of the characters. There are common settings in sitcoms, which are very familiar to the viewer, and the humour is formed from the various conflicts between characters or the embarrassing situations they get into. All these parts need to be well developed. Often sitcoms deliver a moral lesson, however, examples will be given of sitcoms which disregard this is norm.
Characters need to be well built for a sitcom to work. Sitcoms have many different characters because a certain type of character is needed for every situation. A stereotypical personality trait for male main characters is always being sarcastic. Frasier uses it for comebacks and insults, Chandler from Friends uses it to cover-up his insecurities, Ross, again from Friends, uses it to show that he...

...The two sitcoms that I am going to compare are:
-Absolutely Fabulous which is a British sitcom created by Jennifer Saunders. It was based on an original idea by her and Dawn French and was written by Saunders, who plays the leading character.
-The Royle Family which is a British television sitcom produced by Granada Productions for the BBC, which ran for three series between 1998 and 2000.
Absolutely Fabulous is an example of character interplay sitcom. Two main characters are: Edina "Eddy" Monsoon and Patsy Stone, a pair of high-powered career women on the London fashion scene. Eddy runs her own PR firm, and Patsy holds a sinecure position at a top British fashion magazine.
The Royle Family is an example of so called Family sitcom. The main characters are: father Jim, mother Barbara, daughter Denise and son Antony. They are a state benefit-dependent television-fixated family.
In Absolutely Fabulous most of episodes take place in a big, worth almost £ 2 million house in Holland Park (which has a reputation as an affluent and fashionable area with high-class shops and restaurants)and in the London office of Eddy's PR firm. All the interiors are posh and luxurious. The house is sunny, painted in bright colours and decorated with taste. There is a swimming pool, a sauna and a big garden.
In The Royle Family most of episodes take place in the Royles' Manchester home; most centre on the...

...Sitcoms and Reality
TV sitcoms have existed as long as television themselves. They first aired through radios and then continued to evolve as our means of technology and views as society progressed. Based on the sitcoms we have watched, it can be stated that all sitcoms share the overwhelming theme of comedy, but at the same time carry a moral issue to the viewers. They also feature characters that seldom go through personality changes and focused primarily on domestic family life and real-life experiences allowing the audiences to connect. For example, we watched lots of shows such as I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Brady Bunch, The Simpsons, etc and all these shows shared these characteristics. They contained a father figure who was the single source of income and a stay at home mom who took care of the household. Not only that, but all these shows also shared a similar family structure; they contained an upper-middle class family living in a the suburbs in a single family home.
Sitcoms have definitely evolved throughout the history. The early sitcoms usually only featured a nuclear family. They included a stay at home mom who took care of the household and a father who was the only source of income. This reflected the typical American society of the 50’s where men worked and the women stayed at home. However, that all began to change as...

...Movies are a way that americas can find enjoyment, entainment, and sometime life lesson. Throught our my life I always loved Disney film and cartoons, on of my favorites that was released in 2010. The movie Tangled is a romantic family fun film, it is the story of Rapunzel or along the lines or the story.
It's the tale of the girl in the tower with the long, loooong hair. In this version, her hair has magical healing powers, gained from a flower that was brewed in a potion and given to her mother during childbirth to save her life. The powers transferred to the child - but then a wicked old woman (who had discovered and nurtured the flower until the king's men found it) stole the baby. Now the woman, Mother Gothel, uses the hair's magical powers to rejuvenate herself on a regular basis. And she's kept the girl hidden away in a tower for 18 years, telling her that she keeps her there because the world is full of wicked people who want to steal her hair's magic. The hero in this story is a raffish thief named Flynn who, with a pair of ruffians called the Stabbington brothershave broken into the castle (where Rapunzel's real parents, the king and queen, live) and stolen a crown. Chased by the king's men (and one particularly determined horse called Maximus), Flynn escapes into the hidden valley where Rapunzel's tower is. Mother Gothel isn't home -- but when Flynn climbs up to the tower, Rapunzel clocks him with a frying pan and trusses him up. Eventually it comes out...

...going to be analyzed through the lens of communication theories. By doing my research I found out that more than one theories of communication were pointed out and to be specific most of them. I also absorbed the influences and impact of a TV –Show has in real life and to people. We compare ourselves to those on TV, we change how we dress and cut our hair and talk based on the latest television trends. Viewers pick up catch phrases and turn them into sidesplitting party parodies that in turn become part of our culture. Over time TV-Shows acquire a kind of second life, where people who don’t even watch a show perceive the program as being extremely influential .The stories are pieces of the creator’s perceptions that are always edited, filtered, and scripted. The worldview of those involved in making the program shapes how the real world is manipulated in order to attract an audience and how can producers and writers use entertainment
programs to promote a social agenda that will sooth their dysfunctional consciences while making them big money.
TABLE OF CONTEXT
I. Introduction
II. Friends sitcom presentation
III. Cultivation theory
IV. Relationship dynamics through a “Friends “ episode
V. The predicted outcome value theory illustrated in a ‘Friends “ episode
VI. Conclusion
VII. References
VIII. Appendices
INTRODUCTION
In this report we will distinguish major communication theories through one of the...